Monday, April 9, 2012

The battle

The snake gods keep watch from
a roadside shrine as the procession with the Velakali dancers makes its way towards the
Padmanabhaswamy temple.

Thiruvananthapuram’s
Padmanabhaswamy temple was not just one of the anchors of spiritual life in the
erstwhile kingdom of Travancore. It was also a patron of a number of arangams
or art forms, some performed inside the temple and others outside.

Gouri Lakshmi
Bayi of the erstwhile royal family of Travancore writes in Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple that 99 arangams are believed to have
enjoyed the temple’s patronage, though details are now available of only around
55 of them.

The cameras start clicking as the
performers go through their opening moves.

Among the arangams
associated with the temple is Velakali, a martial dance traditionally performed
by a sub-group of the Nair community. The dance was generally performed during
the temple’s annual Painkuni utsavam, one of its two major festivals. Staged on
the eastern approach to the temple, the dance is believed to recreate the
Kurukshetra war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas.

Only a
handful of the Velakali performers are men;

the rest are boys.

Now, much about
the Padmanabhaswamy temple changed over one suspense-filled week last June. For
that’s when a committee appointed by India’s Supreme Court to inspect the
temple’s vaults reportedly discovered tonnes of gold, silver, precious stones
and jewellery in the vaults. And in the blink of an eye, the Padmanabhaswamy
temple went from being one of India’s important Vishnu temples to, arguably,
the world’s wealthiest religious institution.

In the weeks
since then, change has swept across the temple precincts: new security measures
have been introduced, shops around the temple have been relocated, long term
plans for managing the vaults are being drawn up and the contents of the vaults
are quietly and methodically being inventoried.

The young
warriors are all set for battle.

Meanwhile, the
temple’s spiritual routines, including its festivals, continue pretty much as
they have for decades if not centuries. As I wrote a couple of years ago, in
March/April every year imposing figures of the five Pandavas are erected in
front of the temple’s eastern entrance for the duration of the 10-day Painkuni
utsavam or festival. Once made of wood, the fibreglass figures are an integral
part of Painkuni utsavam.

Boredom
writ across his face, a young performer waits for the final segment of the Velakali
to start.

Gouri Lakshmi
Bayi writes in Sree Padmanabha Swamy
Temple that the figures of the Pandavas are erected to ward off rain during
the festival. The belief, she adds, is that the figure of Arjuna, supposed to
be the son of the rain god Indra, is especially useful to keep rain away. Which
is why the Painkuni utsavam is also called the pancha Pandava utsavam or the
festival of the five Pandavas.

Every performer
wears a breastplate of golden beads and carries a tiny wooden shield and cane.

Back in the
early 1970s, the Velakali performance during the Painkuni utsavam was scrapped,
possibly due to financial challenges. Over the years, there were some attempts
to revive the Velakali tradition, but none of them worked.

During
the final stages of the performance, the dancers are at the foot of the steps
that lead to the temple’s eastern entrance.

Last year though,
people who live around the temple chipped-in to raise the money required to
revive the Velakali during the Painkuni utsavam. So last April, after 40-odd
years, the Kauravas once again got to fight the Pandavas in Thiruvananthapuram.

Unfortunately, I
didn’t get to see that battle. So when the date for this year’s Velakali was
announced, I was determined to be there. As were a couple of thousand other
people and a small army of photographers and television cameras.

Residents
of one of the temple’s outbuildings keep an eye on things, as does a security
camera.

One hundred dancers
took part in the Velakali performance at the Padmanabhaswamy temple. Armed with
small wooden shields and canes, the dancers are believed to represent the hundred
Kaurava brothers. The performance, accompanied by music, ends with the defeat
of the dancers who pretend to flee in disorder.

And as the
Kauravas lost yet again and dusk crept in, a new cohort of armed guards quietly
slipped into place to keep watch over the Lord’s treasure.